In pairs or individually, this activity allows learners to get a glance of EntreComp, its areas and competences. It also prompts learners to start designing their own vision on how to use EntreComp, in the sense that they will select the competences and respective learning outcomes they see as most fit for their target groups (their own trainees) and their practice. Nothing happens until it happens in someone's mind first, so let’s start by working on a vision.
For example, in Luxembourg, a team of experts (teachers, trainers, school directors, entrepreneurs) examined the framework to determine which competences and what level of competences could be trained in secondary education. As the number of indicators are quite high, they chose only those which fitted the Luxembourgish school system. At the same time, they decided to use only the first four levels of competence, deciding that the higher levels were not suited. By doing this, they produced a simplified version of EntreComp which is easier to read and still includes the main spirit of the framework. At the beginning, the quantity of information included in the whole framework felt enormous to them, but everything became clearer once they started to work with it.
Number of participants: 10-16
Duration: About 2h
Objective: Create a tailor-made version of EntreComp, with a personalised set of competences and respective learning outcomes, adjusted to the trainers’ (participants’) wills and needs, develop a vision and communicate it to others. It is the vision of the future possibilities, of what can be, that arouses emotion and motivates people to give their best.
\1. This exercise will work better for people who work in the same organisation. In this sense, split the class in pairs of people that come from the same organisation. If a participant is coming alone, then s/he should work alone. If necessary, there can also be groups of three, to avoid having people working alone.
\2. Ask each group to select the EntreComp competences and respective learning outcomes they would feel more passioned to approach, taking into consideration the learning environment they work in, the target trainees/students and the organisation they work for. Give it 45 minutes to get the selection.
\3. After compiling their own EntreComp version, with the set of the selected competences and learning outcomes, learners will have to develop their own vision on how to embed entrepreneurship key competence development in its organisation’s teaching practices. Ask them not to be afraid to dream big. One can always scale down to meet the realities of the situation but dreaming big allows you to think about ideas that may not seem likely, yet are in fact possible. Thinking big also forces you to think about the long term. They can look for instructions on the WEB on how to build a vision, but the following steps can also guide the process of building their own vision and communicating it to others.
\4. Reflect: ask participants to reflect on their organisation’s challenges, major changes, new experiences, lost opportunities, awkward situations, failed attempts, turnarounds, last-minute saves, inspiring people, remarkable achievements, and memorable events that may have occurred in the past.
\5. Write: Because we live in a fast-paced world, with little time for reflecting and writing, many people want to skip this step. That is a mistake. When you write, you discover how to say precisely what you mean. Ask participants to write a speech about their vision. The speech should be no longer than five minutes and they may weave personal stories into their speeches, as their experiences may be interesting to the audience.
\6. Speak: It does no good to create a vision without a plan to speak about it over and over again – as many times as necessary to deploy it! It takes several repetitions for most people to truly hear and remember the message. In this case, this may just be the beginning of a change participants will promote in their organisations. Each group should select a spokesman who will speak to the group about their vision in no more than 5 minutes.
\7. Listen: It is important to gain feedback on your vision, to see if other people share your concerns or see if they are interested in your picture of how things could be. Give the audience time to ask questions about the visions that are presented, how the authors plan to implement it, what obstacles they foresee to face, what resources they believe they will need, etc. Everyone doesn't necessarily have to agree with a vision for it to be a good one, but if people get animated and interested in talking about it, that is a sign that it is onto something.
A vision is a big picture of the way things ought to be.
It is an image of what we are working towards. Every day, as we go about our life, we may find ourselves thinking about all the ways things could be better. If you put together all the pieces of how things should be, you have an overall vision.
Once we have a vision, we tell people about it and use it to lead people. Sharing a vision is critical, as it gives people a bigger picture of what things can be like. It helps people raise their hopes and expectations; it inspires them. When people are inspired, they are more likely to work on something.
Whenever we talk to people about our group or organisation, we tell them what we are working towards. The more we do it, the better we will get at it, and the more people will be willing to support us. As we communicate it to others, we are creating a community of supporters.